| Author |
Message |
extralife
Posts: 3316
|
 Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 3:51 pm Post subject: |
|
dhex wrote:
marriage is, stripped of cultural baggage, a business contract - an extended liablity body, since you are liable for your partner's debts, etc. my argument would be to treat marriage as a nondescript business of two people, tax it as such, and be done with the definitions.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. Especially since it would go some length to remove the cultural pressure to settle down, marry, have kids, move to the suburbs and invite your neighbors to your barbeque on Sunday (after Church). I honestly think marriage is probably not suited for a majority of people. It ought to be given some time, at least.
I"m honestly not sure how you could argue that gays should be allowed to marry but polygamists shouldn't without dipping into murky moral territory. Hell, were it not for the creepy submissive, mysognistic cultural that surrounds the religious groundings of polygamy, I don't even think it's worth getting up in arms about. Sure it's a little weird, but I'm pretty sure that if you remove the religious groups with a cultural prediliection towards polygamy, not a whole lot of people would ever end up married in threes. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
finnagain
Posts: 181
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 3:58 pm Post subject: |
|
extralife wrote:
Sure it's a little weird, but I'm pretty sure that if you remove the religious groups with a cultural prediliection towards polygamy, not a whole lot of people would ever end up married in threes. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Polygamy only makes sense in times when a great number of children are needed to sustain and grow a tribal group. So it made sense for the Mormons in Utah, it made sense of the Hebrews outside of Egypt, it made sense for the followers of Mohammad in Mecca, and (the way things sometimes seem to be going) it will make sense for the rational, freethinking people once they've shipped all of us off, 'Brave New World,' style, to some god-forsaken bit of land. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
TOLLMASTER
Posts: 1977
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 5:34 pm Post subject: |
|
You know, the more I think about it, the gay-loving supercomputer ruling the world idea sounds pretty golden to me. I would have about the same amount of say in the government with the supercomputer as with Washington running the show (that is to say, "almost none") and the supercomputer could at least be expected to be fair in that the same situation would be decided the same way each time. It would also be hard to bribe a supercomputer, but Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the original one) proves that even a machine intelligence loves chocolate.
We could also hope to be conquered by benevolent aliens. Childhood's End was a pretty good book. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
aderack
Posts: 5018
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 5:55 pm Post subject: |
|
dhex wrote:
marriage is, stripped of cultural baggage, a business contract - an extended liablity body, since you are liable for your partner's debts, etc. my argument would be to treat marriage as a nondescript business of two people, tax it as such, and be done with the definitions.
On the surface, that sounds really sensible. What would the tax situation be for a body of this sort? And how would personal taxes factor into this? Would any money earned or defecits sustained by either party become part of a "family pool" assumed as a single financial mass? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Mister Toups
Posts: 4943
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 7:55 pm Post subject: |
|
| This thread is so gay guys :roll: |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
dhex
Posts: 2963
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 7:56 pm Post subject: |
|
I honestly think marriage is probably not suited for a majority of people.
eh, not in this form, presuming marriage = permanent. there are some interesting lessons to be drawn from various state figurations like covenant marriages and no fault divorce (protip: in new jersey, no fault sucks ass). the argument that emerges is that when trust and investment in the institution are eroded, less people will participate fully. a sort of weird prisoner's dilemma kinda thing.
the tax question is the most interesting part of that proposal.
Would any money earned or defecits sustained by either party become part of a "family pool" assumed as a single financial mass?
not being a lawyer, i'm not sure if it's possible to set up something that both limits the abuse factor and doesn't go back into automatically penalizing the spouse. i conceptualize it as something akin to an incorporated body of two; however, the tax situation has to assume that a federal government that relinquished control of marriage would be extremely different from our current situation. a federalist approach to marriage doesn't work unless you want people having to continually reaffirm their vows in various states in accordance with various laws (i.e. gay marriage v. non gay marriage states, or cohabitation laws in one state then moving to another state where such arrangements are prohibited, etc)
i do think within a decade the issue of at least gay paired marriages will be decided for us culturally, which is a net plus. in some ways its very good such philosophical niceties are skipped, at least some of the time. i don't think polygamous relationships or group marriages (m2+f2, etc) are a slippery slope myself, even though they've been framed as such. if marriage is elastic as a definition, what are the actual boundaries? who decides them? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Psiga
Posts: 3990
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 9:16 pm Post subject: |
|
dhex wrote:
if marriage is elastic as a definition, what are the actual boundaries? who decides them?
God and the President, of course. Duh. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
BalbanesBeoulve
Posts: 2126
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 10:00 pm Post subject: |
|
| hey guys, don't forget the other thing that the slippery slope of gay marriage leads to. Bestiality! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Psiga
Posts: 3990
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 10:37 pm Post subject: |
|
Banes, it's not too late to get into law school so that you can get in on equestrian divorce defense at the ground floor.
"Your honor, the fact that my client's massive horse phallus ruptured the plaintif's colon does not mean that he is any less entitled to half of all of the plaintif's earthly worth. The defendant did not willfully intend to rupture the plaintif's colon, whereas we have clear proof that the plaintif willfully chose to violate their union of marriage by repeatedly sharing a hammock with a leather-clad sailor sporting a handlebar mustache and one very large container of Crisco. We also have several eye-witness reports of the plaintif having copious amounts of cybersex with strangers in Second Life. My client's grief over these acts of betrayal is--
Seemed funnier in my head, I guess. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Loolapaloozer
Posts: 209
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 10:59 pm Post subject: |
|
Insert Credit
gay-friendly supercomputers |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
showka
Posts: 994
|
| Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2006 6:48 am Post subject: |
|
Psiga wrote:
Banes, it's not too late to get into law school so that you can get in on equestrian divorce defense at the ground floor.
"Your honor, the fact that my client's massive horse phallus ruptured the plaintif's colon does not mean that he is any less entitled to half of all of the plaintif's earthly worth. The defendant did not willfully intend to rupture the plaintif's colon, whereas we have clear proof that the plaintif willfully chose to violate their union of marriage by repeatedly sharing a hammock with a leather-clad sailor sporting a handlebar mustache and one very large container of Crisco. We also have several eye-witness reports of the plaintif having copious amounts of cybersex with strangers in Second Life. My client's grief over these acts of betrayal is--
Seemed funnier in my head, I guess.
I thought it was pretty damn funny, although the joke peaked at "massive horse phallus ruptured the plaintif's colon." |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
dhex
Posts: 2963
|
| Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2006 7:05 am Post subject: |
|
hey guys, don't forget the other thing that the slippery slope of gay marriage leads to. Bestiality!
despite the sloped brows of the people using this particular technique, it's not like they're wrong. people will eventually petition for animal/human unions.
it just has fuck-all to do with the issue at hand. slippery slopes are often pretty slippery. and sometimes they're very rough and don't go anywhere. they're unreliable.
anyway, yeah, there is no good answer why gay marriage would be ok but poly marriages would not be. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Pijaibros
Posts: 968
|
| Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2006 9:15 am Post subject: |
|
dhex wrote:
anyway, yeah, there is no good answer why gay marriage would be ok but poly marriages would not be.
Can't you see where it would go? Polygamous gay marriages. That there will make people flee the country on foot. Leaving only Mexicans in that state to absorb California and the southwest back into Mexico once again.
Think of the children! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|